1. Running PHP 5.2.9-2. Everything is working great.

2. PHP 5.3.0 Released, OCD kicks in. *I have to have the latest version of everything*

3. Upgrade to PHP 5.3, everything still runs smooth, except for vBulletin and it’s E_DEPRECATED errors. Which is fine, as soon as I come across them, I fix them. No biggie…

4. Turns out E_DEPRECATED errors are EVERYWHERE in vBulletin, and starting to annoy me. I decide to rollback to PHP 5.2.

5. I figure a regular install using the installer would work fine, and try it.

6. Didn’t work, PHP fails.

7. Decided to try getting the Zip package and placing the contents into C:\Program Files\PHP\

8. Didn’t work, getting FastCGI failures all over the place.

9. Procrastination kicks in,I don’t touch it for days.

10. Today comes along, and instead of just uninstalling PHP and doing a clean install, I try to fix my Windows Server 2003 dual boot so I can work there. (Started this at 10 AM)

11. Of course, somehow NTLDR, boot.ini, and NTDETECT are nowhere to be found on the 2k3 HDD, figured this one out after several hours of trying to figure out what the hell is going on. (Time is now 1:00 PM)

12. Go back to IIS to see if I can fix the PHP problem. Try all sorts of things to try and PHP and IIS to like each other again.

13. 45 minutes later, all things have failed. (Time is now 1:45 PM)

14. I say “fuck it” and completely remove all traces of PHP from the computer. Takes 2 minutes, at max.

15. I start the download of PHP 5.2.10 Windows Installer from www.php.net/downloads/, then remember, “oh yeah, they have a Windows site now.” Download is already 2 minutes in.

16. Cancel that download, then browse to windows.php.net/downloads/

17. Download PHP 5.2.10 VC6 Installer, takes five minutes. (connection sucks)

18. Run the installer, choose all my extensions and extras. Let UAC do its thing, then let the installer finish. Takes about 5 minutes.

19. Browse to http://localhost/vbulletin/ everything is fine and dandy.

Moral of the story?

The next time I even so much as MENTION the fact that I want to upgrade PHP to a new branch, then rollback to an older version, PLEASE shoot me.

I turned a 15 minute job into several hours worth of headache that lasted over the span of a week.

Often people will post screenshots of websites using their Windows based PC’s, and the fonts simply look terrible. The edges are jagged and just look awful.

Windows has this nice feature called “font smoothing,” which will make all fonts rendered within Windows to appear clearer and look better overall.

Enabling it is simple.

Windows Vista users: Right click on your desktop and click “Personalize,” click “Window Color and Appearance,” then click “Open classic appearance properties for more color options.”

From here you will see the classic Appearance Options dialog available in older Windows versions. Click the “Effects” button. In the dialog that pops up check the “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts” and select the ClearType option from the drop down menu. Afterwards click Ok and then click Apply.

Windows XP Users: Right click on your desktop and hit Properties. Select the Appearance tab and follow the instructions outlined in the second paragraph above.

Here are screenshots of the differences between having ClearType smoothing enabled, and not having it enabled.

Disabled:

Enabled using Standard Smoothing:

Enabled using ClearType smoothing:

Pay close attention to where it says “Final Fantasy Crystal Cosmo Staff” on the screenshots. That’s where it stands out best.

If you run Windows Vista and are tired of the bland boot screen do the following:

Start > Run > msconfig

Now, go to the Boot tab and Uncheck the No GUI boot box. Click OK and reboot your machine.

I haven’t tried it on XP or Windows 7 yet.

This first screenshot is just the Desktop. Windows 7 comes with a bunch of default wallpapers and you can set it so it changes every 30 minutes.

This one is just of the Start Menu. The little arrows next to certain programs open up menus, each one different depending on the item.

Getting Started opens up a menu with links to several places.

Stick Notes opens a menu so you can create new Notes for yourself (it’s a beefed up version of the Notepad in Vista’s Sidebar).

Paint and Notepad opens a menu of recently accessed items for each program.

And Internet Explorer opens a menu that contains your History.

In this screenshot, you can see how they have changed the Thumbnail Previews for the taskbar.

In the example, I used Internet Explorer. I opened Three tabs, and each tab gets displayed seperately in it’s own preview.

Not many programs support the new features, so don’t get your hopes up for Firefox to work like this, let’s hope they add it in 3.1.

The taskbar also groups open programs together if they are running on the same Process.

For example, look at my taskbar. If I were to open the Downloads Window of Firefox, instead of it being placed at the end of the list, it’ll be placed right next to the Firefox window, and given it’s own Preview window in the Firefox Thumbnail similar to Internet Explorer’s tabs.

The little icons at the bottom at similar to Quick Links in previous versions, but differ in many ways.

One of the ways they differ, is when you open an item that has been “pinned” to the taskbar, it’ll simply open there, instead of being opened at the end of the list.

You can see that example, with the location of Firefox’s taskbar item. When I close Firefox, the long bar will shorten and become a small icon.

Now, for the technical crap.

Windows 7 has the same requirements as Windows Vista, so there is no downgrade taking place anywhere (yay!).

However, Windows 7 does use less resources than Windows Vista overall. It has better RAM and Processor management than Windows Vista.

Windows 7 was built on the Windows Vista kernel, and fixes pretty much all of Windows Vista’s shortcomings.

I highly recommend that anyone planning on getting a new computer soon, that they hold off until Windows 7 is released to manufacturers. It’ll save you the headache of upgrading and it’s as stable as Windows 98 SE was back in the day. ]]> http://www.ryanashbrook.com/2009/02/01/windows-7-screenies/feed/ 0 http://www.ryanashbrook.com/2009/01/11/greetings-from-windows-7/ http://www.ryanashbrook.com/2009/01/11/greetings-from-windows-7/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:03:47 +0000 Ryan http://forums.ffcrystalcosmo.com/blog.php?b=169 Yep, as of right now, I’m posting via Firefox on the new version of Windows, Windows 7.

I must say, I’m quite impressed. The GUI has been greatly improved over Vista’s. It seems to be using less resources then my Vista install (though, that could be because I did a fresh install).

Anyway, screenshots to in a new blog post soon. ]]> http://www.ryanashbrook.com/2009/01/11/greetings-from-windows-7/feed/ 0